Closest Thing to God
by Sednareinedeseaux
Summary: They're not quite in love, but their mutual interest in each other makes up for it. Slash Moriarty x Izaya. OS.


I swear this is all **Kiosyato**'s fault. She wouldn't leave me alone with her Oriharty thingy and I just. Well. I just love mindfuck too much. So this was born. Sorry.

Disclaimer: Durarara! belongs to Ryohgo Narita and Sherlock to BBC. I own nothing.

Note: This happens somewhere between A Study in Pink and The Blind Banker for Sherlock, and before Mikado moves to Ikebukuro for DRRR!. Warning for slash and dark themes. The title comes from the song _Don't Stop_ by InnerPartySystem. I hope you enjoy.

**Edit****:** Kiosyato drew a fanart related to the fanfic! Link here: http:/ / teirebe. deviantart. com/art/Oriharty-You-should-see-us-in-a-crown-297410785 (erase the spaces)

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**Closest Thing to God**

It is a strange day. Blinding white clouds eat the top of the buildings. Izaya can see a glass lift climbing the side of one of them and disappearing into the thick cover. The air is cold on his bare hands. Thousands of feet step loudly on the ground and the noise is so familiar that he has to strain to hear it anymore. He had never realised that before, and the fact is unsettling. As unsettling as it can be for him.

He usually doesn't care much for the atmosphere. There has always been a tension lying dormant in Ikebukuro, parallel to the one he finds in the people who live here. This quiet growl of the streets and the lights makes the city seem alive. (Somehow he has never doubted that it really is.)

Today there is expectation in its silence. Izaya can hear its sharp intakes of breath and its longish whispers. Street lamps flicker unusually. Uneasiness makes the windows quiver.

He is not surprised to find the man waiting in his living-room, a cup of tea in hands and a very lost Namie by his side. Izaya chuckles, and the man smiles his disturbing smile — light and hollow with a hint of craziness behind. He likes it that way.

"You can go," Izaya tells Namie.

"But it's not-"

"Leave. I'll send you the triple of work this weekend so you can work your arse off," he adds lightly. She shoots him a disgusted look, grabs her coat and slams the door fiercely.

Izaya holds back his laugh. She's so fun to mess with. Not as fun as Shizuo, though.

On the sofa, the man observes him.

"I'd never seen her before," he says, and there is something akin to envy in his voice.

"Don't get you knickers in a twist, Mr Moriarty. She's my… maid."

Izaya can nearly hear Namie swear that she's anything _but_ his maid. '_You do clean up the house_', he replies mentally. He is vaguely surprised when there is no answer. Moriarty is still staring at him; the empty smile is back on his lips. He takes a sip of his tea, as if to hide them.

A lot of unasked questions float quietly in the room, buzzing with the same restrained energy he has felt in the streets earlier. Today is a strange day, but James Moriarty has the power to make strange things even stranger. His arrival in Ikebukuro can mean anything.

Izaya's love for this human is singular. Its sweetness parches his mouth and makes him thirst for something that is not quite water and not quite blood.

He met the man at age sixteen, when he first began to see things he shouldn't. The patterns in life. The colour of greed and selfishness, and how pretty it could become when mixed with anger and fear. The transparency of love, its lack of matter and tangibility and the fact that he _wants_ it. He wants it with all the force that he never used before, because he had never wanted anything in his life so far.

(But then he had met Shizuo too, and the beast of passion had been awakened by a hatred so strong it sometimes still twists his insides painfully.)

If there was anything his parents were good for, it was money. It had been decided very soon that their children, while slightly neglected affectionally, would be very well educated. And if there was one thing he had truly liked at Raira Academy — besides the mass of exceptionally brainless students, which was wonderful in its own way — it was the exchange students system. So he had been able to live in London for a few months, and it would have been a dull journey, truly, if he hadn't tried to explore the most notorious places of the town.

It had been something of a bet with Shinra, while Shizuo hadn't been looking, to try and bring back some whore for the blond. Kadota had seemed profoundly appalled by the whole idea. Shinra, however, with a sick sort of scientific interest, had wanted in immediately.

Izaya had been thinking that it would be a good way of framing Shizuo for rape. Then he would have been locked in jail and out of his way for a long while, and by the time he was freed maybe the beast inside Izaya would have stopped trying to claw its way out of his stomach.

He found himself barely an hour later in front of the nearest brothel, alone. His complete lack of embarrassment was useful for once; when the ugly woman standing at the entrance asked him what the hell a kid was doing here, he didn't even blush. He asked as politely as he could in his broken English if he could perhaps have one of the girls follow him home, if you would be so kind, ma'am. And as she laughed and laughed and laughed and he looked at her and thought, '_I wonder if God too laughs at the stupidity of His creations_', the man came and put a hand on his shoulder.

He did something, he must have, because suddenly the woman wasn't laughing anymore. She was watching them, with her ugly mouth and her fat, naked arms trembling violently, and then she turned her back on them and slammed the door in their faces so hard that a piece of broken wood fell on the steps. The man released his shoulder and turned to look at him.

"That was completely uninteresting," said Izaya.

"My name is Jim Moriarty," the man replied, and smiled his hollow smile and asked for his own name.

Izaya looks at the mastermind comfortably sprawled on his sofa and thinks that it might be best if he never sees him again.

But it is hard not to see Moriarty everywhere, now that he is in the 'business'. His web has no limit. His name is that of God amongst criminals and businessmen alike, either because he has helped them or because he has ruined them. Nobody says it but everyone knows. Moriarty isn't a man anymore. He is somewhere beyond, in a place people are afraid to name or think of. And Izaya has felt since day one the languid need to find out what that place tastes like.

He licks his lips. Moriarty chuckles.

"Any reason you've come here?" he asks, pushing one of the man's legs out of the way and sitting down next to him. "Is it time for Britain to drop a bomb on Japan yet? If that's the case, thank you for warning me, but you owe me a new flat."

"Not at all," Moriarty says, and puts an arm around his shoulders so that he can speak directly in his ear. "I just needed a break."

"You don't take breaks."

"Maybe I want to, this time."

He looks serious. Well. As serious as he can be. Izaya feels himself smirk.

"Has trouble arisen in your Queen's land?"

"Maybe. Didn't I tell you? I have a new net idol."

He takes out his laptop and opens a window. On the screen appears the picture of a man in his late twenties, with black hair and clear blue eyes, taken from a newspaper. He looks handsome enough, but incredibly annoyed and bored, and that is a mixed expression Izaya has seen on only one face in all his life. He glares at Moriarty.

"Who is he?"

"Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes." Consulting criminal James Moriarty laughs. "He's quite the genius," he continues. "Resolved a nice case I sent his way not too long ago. Really impressive. A near perfect mirror image of myself. If only he weren't so boring."

"Have you met him?" Izaya asks.

"No." Not yet. But he doesn't need to say it. His smile is words enough.

Izaya feels the strange need to bite something. He looks at the photo of Sherlock Holmes, his clear eyes and dark strands of hair, and thinks of how cute he would look drowning in his own blood. Moriarty's hand grips his shoulder and makes him turn his head toward him.

"You're not jealous, are you?" he wonders aloud. "You know you don't need to, boy. If Holmes proves to be nothing but a fraud, he won't mean anything to me anymore. If he proves to be something like myself, then I'll just eliminate him. You don't want to be eliminated, do you?"

"Of course not, but then again, I reckon you'd never manage to kill me even if you wanted to."

Moriarty laughs again. "That is probably true. Cats have nine lives after all."

Izaya doesn't bother pointing out that he is not, in fact, a cat. Instead he smiles and licks the corner of Moriarty's lips hungrily. "So you just missed me?"

"It happens."

"You know I hate you."

"You're lying, love, but liars make interesting people."

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AN: I have never before written anything in English. Any advice is welcome.


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